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Ready for
liftoff: Arianespace’s Ariane 5 ECA will launch today DirecTV 9S
and Optus D1 satellites.
(Arianespace photo) |
KOUROU, French Guiana, Oct. 13, 2006/Satnews
Daily/ ― Arianespace's heavy-lift Ariane 5 launcher is now in the
launch zone, ready for today’s liftoff from the Spaceport in French
Guiana with a dual-satellite payload.
Rolling out from Spaceport's Final Assembly Building under mostly sunny
French Guiana skies on Thursday morning, the Ariane 5 proceeded along a
2.8-km. dual-rail track to the ELA-3 launch zone, where it was
positioned over the facility's massive flame ducts.
With the transfer of the Ariane 5, Arianespace said all is set for the
final countdown leading to a liftoff today, Friday, at the start of a
one-hour launch window that opens at 5:56 p.m. (local time in French
Guiana).
For Arianespace's fourth Ariane 5 flight of 2006, the mission will carry
the DirecTV 9S television broadcast satellite for U.S. digital
television service provider DirecTV, and the Optus D1 spacecraft for
Australia's Optus.
DirecTV 9S is installed in the upper payload position on Ariane 5, and
will be deployed at 27 minutes into the flight. This will be followed by
the Optus D1's separation approximately four minutes later.
The DirecTV spacecraft is the larger of the launcher's two primary
payloads, with a liftoff mass of about 5,535 kg. After its launch by
Ariane 5, the Space Systems/Loral-built platform will join DirecTV's
satellite constellation that provides digital television service for
more than 15.5 million customers.
Optus D1 has a mass at liftoff at 2,299 kg., and is to provide fixed
communications and satellite broadcast services over Australia and New
Zealand. This payload was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation.
The Ariane 5 also is carrying Japan's LDREX-2 auxiliary payload. This is
a sub-scale demonstrator of a lightweight antenna reflector to be used
on the Japanese ETS-8 engineering test satellite. Once the DirecTV 9S
and Optus D1 payloads are released, LDREX-2 will unfurl during the
Ariane 5 mission in a multi-step process that takes approximately 45
minutes. When its deployment sequence is complete, this auxiliary
passenger will be ejected from Ariane 5's upper stage, remaining in
orbit for a period of time before the lightweight structure burns up in
the atmosphere on reentry.
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Launcher |
